21 Answers

Man I hate when that happens. It’s the ghost of your would be sneeze, who has been tragically killed. It’s unfair! The sneeze is denied his glorious, mucus spewing, orgasm like moment of triumph, and turned into a ghost…to sadly float away forever, roaming the earth, haunting noses everywhere until Ragnarok…they say when your nose is itchy or when it kind of crinkles…this is the ghost of a long lost sneeze visiting you.

I imagine a white cow with black spots and a bell on eating grass, and that’s it, the urge to sneeze just completely goes away. She doesn’t moo, because she’s eating. But I guess your cow could moo :) I never tried it with a cough or a yawn like that dude in the link suggests.

@deni Only on the subway or at a restaurant; sneezing is for sure more satisfying than imagining cows. Or I use it when I get the aborted sneeze feeling. I think I use it mostly for that, actually. Ooh, can we name it the Aborted Sneeze Feeling?

The cow thing is interesting to me, because I’ve heard the same theory about “mayonnaise.” Like, saying mayonnaise can make that sensation go away or get rid of the urge to sneeze. I have no idea if its true, but it just seems like a comparable idea – some kind of distraction/association thing? I dunno.

I freaking hate that feeling. It’s like an itch combined with getting water up your nose or something. Add to that the frustration you feel due to the Aborted Sneeze, and it’s a perfect storm of misery.

There’s something to that whole concentrating on something else thing.

As a kid in school, if we ever saw someone was about to sneeze, we’d start yelling random words – “watermelon! picnic! fish!” – and it stopped them from sneezing almost every time. I guess it’s the distraction.

After telling my husband this 5ish years ago, he liked the idea so to this day whenever I’m about to sneeze, it’s always, “Apple! Banana! Brandon!” Every single time – and it always works.